Drives below - it's the first time I've filmed any in 3 years and have hardly played at all for over a year due to babyitis.

I knew my form had got bad (the distance and accuracy had been telling me this) but i hadn't realised quite how bad until I saw these played back.

First lot are standing drives with Rocs and a Stratus to around 60 - 75 meters. The next ones are with Bosses which once upon a time I could throw 110 - 120 meters in a straight line but nowadays the longest here was around 95 (the orange one), there had been a couple of longer ones in the set before but i managed to not turn the camera on.

For me I am getting no shoulder pause ( i could feel the lack of it as I was throwing yet couldn't work out how to get it in so any tips would be greatfully accepted.) I seem to be rotating and spinning the shoulder around instead of lateral movement across the body, meaning there is little to no elbow stop/elbow chop and lower arm whip. My xstep is weird to say the least, more sort of a dancey hop, the last step which felt big whilst I was doing it is tiny, i'm getting hardly any weight shift and i'm pretty sure i'm starting the pull way too early, the hips are spinning rather than pulling. I feel like I'm bouncing/hopping through at the end too much as well and not letting the shot flow. At the end of this I pulled a muscle in my back as well which is killing me now as I sit here typing!! Bad day all round!

I still haven't even begun to manage to link up the good work I've done with Brad Walkers closed shoulder snap drill and the right pec drill into a proper throw, i can't even properly work these into a standing throw. Doing both of those without any other movements works well - putters out to 60 meters on dead straight lines with little to no reachback. then I add other movement and this monstrosity occurs. I meant to film those two bits as well but then pulled the muscle and called it a day. I'm afraid only being able to get out to practise once a month probably doesn't help, it's just so frustrating as I have been there before and i know when i was throwing (relatively) big it was easy and effortless, I just wish I could find it again.

So I need to be doing the hip thrust Dave Feldberg talks about rather than the upper body coming over the top?

The more i watch the video the more it makes sense what you've said, thanks SeaBass. Explains the stupid follow through I'm doing and why I'm not getting that shoulder pause as the disc/arm has no room to go across me before the shoulders turn again, at least that's how I'm understanding it. Was there anything else glaringly obvious?

Edit * This is very good, i'm f*cking around in the office whilst the video is playing - fortunately no on else is here! - and trying to brace the weight against the right side - I am sure this was the same feeling I used to get when throwing well - the feeling I have been missing for a looooong time.

Edit** two things that have struck me - 1. my form was destroyed by trying to drive ever further and further - this seems to be the likely culprit that instead of getting this tension I was just starting to throw my body at it losing other mechanics in the process - does that sound sensible?

2. Would it make sense that I can still throw big anhyzers, as I lean back slightly for these and that would naturally shove my hip out more and keep the body weight slightly back. ( My anhyzers go further than you would expect in comparison to the normal form - not just created by the flight path)

I know I'm probably a little new to be giving feedback however I've been watching so many different videos recently (both tutorials and general tournament coverages) I felt there was one thing that really stood out for me... You seem to be so focued on your 'pause' that you're almost stalling your entire movements and therefore losing so much momemtum that you're almost performing a standing throwing.

Yup, thought it was about time to film myself again and see what was going wrong.

Over the last couple of years there has been a deliberate attempt to slow down everything in order to try to get it all working together however I hadn't realised whilst actually throwing that I was almost running through the first steps and then stopping into the last, this I am pretty sure isn't something I was just doing on these drives either, it's something that i've definitely been doing on the course as well and just looks like a massive waste of energy and added complexicity at the start of the throw - I may as well just do a one step into it until I get that transition sorted.

Actually dancing up and down hopping steps are great and they are used to great effect by disc golfers, Steve Brinster being the extreme case, parkour guys and cats falling down and transferring the up to down movement into a forward bounce saving them from busted hips, muscles and joints.

Your upper arm was locked in a single position relative to the torso which prevented you from getting the elbow forward killing the snap. Compounded by the lack of the shoulder pause coming from spinning out too early with the right leg in the plant step from not tightening the right leg muscles hard to stop the leg in place relative to the ground for a while. Which allows you to push the right hip bones laterally at the target -not spinning but sliding back to front along the center line of the tee- which in turn allows the shoulder pause that removes the big time rounding you do with the disc. The disc should be pulled in a straight line and the best way to practice quickly is to stand close to a wall pulling the disc across your chest from a full reach back to the arm pointing straight at the target by keeping the disc a centimeter off the wall and another off of your chest. The arm will hurt soon in field practice from the added snap when you convert to that form after a pause because the plyometric loading and unloading stretch and shake the muscles and tendons so hard. But you can gain 15 meters in an instant when you get that clicking.

Edit: i forgot to mention that the elbow should be punched forward by moving the whole arm from the shoulder socket back to front during the pause.

Flat shots need running on the center line of the tee and planting each step on the center line. Anhyzer needs running from rear right to front left with the plant step hitting the ground to the left of the line you're running on. Hyzer is the mirror of that.

Do you think it would help to take a longer last step (not a giant step just so it goes out maybe a foot beyond my right shoulder)- to me it looks like it might force my body into a few of these things that the tiny step I'm taking doesn't - for a start it would be a lot harder to spin around this plant step and would encourage me to move the weight laterally past.

I have done your stand against a wall drill before but not for many years (last time was probably when the drive was going well!) - it's one of the things I coach other people to do with good success so should probably listen to my own advice! it's very frustrating to see rounding has crept back in as this was one of the best step forwards i ever took - as soon as I eliminated rounding last time and got a straight line pull it put 15 meters on my drive and led to much greater consistency - it's the key thing I try to teach to all new starters and here i am doing it myself That at least should be fairly easy to get rid of again.

I genuinely thought until I saw these videos that I was getting a lateral hip thrust, again this is something I have been banging on at others about to try to get out of the spinning habit that seems to be rife over here in the UK and to actually start driving rather than pirouetting - it's amazing the difference between what you think you're doing and what you're actually doing in reality! I evidently need to film myself a lot more!

It looks to me like i've destroyed it myself by throwing my upper body weight at the target leading to spinning in turn leading to rounding and killing all the good stuff that had been there.

Plant step length and momentum from the steps and left leg push need to be matched always so the plant step length needs to change to longer with more speed. The gauges for a proper plant step length are the ability to shift the weight forward, getting the front of the disc down and how far the disc goes. Which is related to power generation, nose down angle and apex height of the throw. The faster the disc flies and the more the front of the disc is down the higher the apex height needs to be. Naturally with higher apexes the LSS of the disc comes to play too so you need to have enough spin on the disc to avoid too early fades. Or getting a less fading disc or throwing an s-curve.

Flat shots need running on the center line of the tee and planting each step on the center line. Anhyzer needs running from rear right to front left with the plant step hitting the ground to the left of the line you're running on. Hyzer is the mirror of that.

Bit of a breakthrough today and am writing down notes here for the next time I forget how to drive, hopefully these will remind me!

Went right back to basics working from the hit backwards so starting with the right pec drill.

Lots of little tweaks from the first few throws and started to get a good clean release throwing putters from the right pec position out 55 - 65 meters (just over th half way line and up to the far side of the center circle), Rocs a few meters more and drivers a few meters more than that. As I got into it more my shoulders started getting away with me and opening my body up too early leading to shots shanked far to the right albeit big.

Concentrated on trying to keep hips from going beyond parallel until the disc was out of the pec and getting a good weight shift into the pec drill and ended up keeping the majority straight and the biggest ones with straight teebirds were going out to 80 - 90 meters

What i found for these later ones was concentrating on turning hips away to 180 going up on to the front right toe and making sure I braced the leg as the foot planted and then released into the heel pivot. Making this my main focus seemed to allow the rest of the body to do what it knew to do. When i started thinking about other motions the shoulders would get in front of me again and things went badly

Added a reachback and concentrated on the hip turn away to 180 bringing the front foot onto the toe and trying to keep the arm loose as I turned the hips through 90 and braced against the right leg then heel span out attempting to time this with the rip but don't think I really managed it, I also made sure the pull was coming in very close to the chest. Had a tendency to strongarm when not thinking about it and found keeping my head down until the disc was released gave a much better drive than trying to focus on the target. Some OAT problems which could be got rid off by focusing on bringing the plane of the arm through level. Kept finding my heel spin had gone about 135 degrees and was shanking drives off to the right (again going further than the straight drives but no control) Think this was down to my shoulders getting in front of me again. after throwing around 80 - 90 drives this really started to fire and was throwing putters to 65 - 75 meters, Rocs to 80 - 85 meters and teebirds to 90 meters with destroyers and Bosses out towards 100 (measured on a 110 meter soccer field so the penalty box is around 300') this was very good, as long as i was remembering to stop those hips/shoulders turning too early past parallel I was effortlessly crushing some and getting some beautiful sounding drives.

At this point having to get back from lunch ( I had already taken over an hour) I got excited and jumped straight to a full drive. Oh Boy. For two reps of 15 discs up and down the pitch they were all way into the penalty area and some were going 10 meters or more past the goal and feeling effortless. i was keeping my head in position and trying to stop the shoulders coming through too fast. I unfortunately then got overexcited and cocked up another two reps as I kept letting my hips/shoulders spin out whilst trying to force it so only hit one or two long drives in those. Ran out of time but god it felt good again to be getting some up to and around 400' and averaging from a rep around 350' Can't wait to get out there and try again, just need to make this a solid form again so I can then start trying some longer anny lines without fearing this will destroy everything again...

Last edited by rhatton2 on Tue Jun 24, 2014 8:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm still obviously losing something in the transition of right pec drill into reach back into run up as some of the right pec drill drives were absolutely motoring out there and going as far as the average of the reach back drives, although I suppose this does bring into play what Blake has said time and again about how much each extra bit of motion adds if executed correctly.

Congratulations. Honing and routinizing the changes can be a bitch. In any case lots of repetitions are needed.

I have heard the head down a little over the disc pull line helping some. I can not say if it is a crutch holding the head above the disc but for flat shots the test i did years ago with head upright vs over the disc a while seemed to be a tie distance wise for flat shots. I am very flexible in the neck so far from you so ymmv. There could be another explanation though.

When you change form especially with subconscious dominated issues like maintaining balance as in long reach backs the brain gets over taxed trying to hold the rest of the form in check while guiding the new thing correctly. Which is why normally it is good to change things one or two at a time. When you put the head over the disc you tend to get less visual aiming data. Which lessens the overloading of the brain making body control timing etc. easier.

Head above the disc hyzered is a great thing.

Flat shots need running on the center line of the tee and planting each step on the center line. Anhyzer needs running from rear right to front left with the plant step hitting the ground to the left of the line you're running on. Hyzer is the mirror of that.

JR wrote: When you put the head over the disc you tend to get less visual aiming data. Which lessens the overloading of the brain making body control timing etc. easier.

This is a very interesting idea and i think applies to me completely. I have really struggled with the idea of bringing the head through to see the target as early as possible, it's the one point that Blake teaches that so far has not made sense to me (there have been others that have suddenly made sense when I have done them so this may come )

Both Feldberg (didn't you have a video about one of the Finnish guys being given this tip by Feldberg and putting 20 meters on his drive or was that someone else?) and Schusterick seem to favour a head down until the left shoulder pulls it up approach and this feels a lot more natural to me - it certainly matches up with the other sports i have been coached in - batting in cricket for example, when the form deserts you, you very often revert to an exaggerated head down hold the forward drive position after the shot. With golf I was always taught to keep the head in place watching where the ball had been. Soccer - head down over the ball, kicking in rugby head down over the ball don't immediately follow the flight etc etc. I never had formal coaching in tennis or badminton but with both i would watch the ball/shuttle onto the racket and then hold the head position momentarily as the racket came through, not sure if this was correct but it seemed to work for me. As a result i really struggle with the idea of trying to make visual contact with the target ASAP and it seems to throw me off (I think it makes me rotate my hips/shoulders too early but this is very likely as I am not doing it correctly)

By the way i have been doing the wall drill for the last few weeks at home again, it was a good way to become aware again of when my hips were spinning out instead of bracing into the right leg and has helped me pull straighter and closer into the chest again. Thanks for reminding me to do this drill again, I am going to try to get into a habit of doing this a few times a week just to keep myself on my toes!

It is hard to pull close and the wall drill helps there. Even as a visual aimer with a very limber neck i do not try to force as early as possible eye contact with flat throws. Even though the control drives do have the head leading the throw more than with golf type technique. Naturally the elbow leads the head and i meant relative timing between the techniques by leading head.

Golf drives are steep hyzers basically like fh under limb shots and the neck muscles need to separate the weight of the head from the rest of the body or the heaz will bob around and tilt angles. Flat shots have the head resting on neck vertebrae supported in angles by the neck muscles. Something much more achievable with neck strength than stabilizing a bowed head.

Flat shots need running on the center line of the tee and planting each step on the center line. Anhyzer needs running from rear right to front left with the plant step hitting the ground to the left of the line you're running on. Hyzer is the mirror of that.

These are fantastic and so useful at helping to get the body positions better and to feel the increasing power/acceleration into the hit (especially the reciprocating dingle)

I have not seen them anywhere else on this site so I hope he doesn't mind me posting them but they are superb, quite possibly the best 300' plateau breaking form breakdown I have seen anywhere for disc golf - seems a crazy shame the lack of views they have had so far, (less than 1000 for the part 3 and 100 of those were probably me ) IMO they should be up there with the Dan and Blake hit backwards popularity.